The Great Pumpkin Party

Yesterday, we were over at our friend Tammy's house for a pumpkin carving party. It was great fun. Amelia got to wear her Halloween costume and Markus and I were able to chat with some of our friends...did I say it was great? I made a cherry pie, a pumpkin cheese cake and some sugar and spice pecans...YUM!

Amelia in her frog costume that Grandma brought her all the way from the US!
It was Markus and my first gathering with friends and loads of kids. One of them, our friend Imani's little girl Aminah was just so infatuated with Amelia...they're going to BFF's I just know it! She was quite cute with Amelia, always going up to her and giving her kisses on her hand...then sticking her finger in Amelia's mouth...yup, that is totally best friend material :)

Amelia and Aminah
Ahh, and then the pumpkin carving. Markus and I couldn't find a decent pumpkin...just these really small ones that were probably just 2 pounds or something...nothing that we could actually carve in to...so this week, I'm going to be on the lookout for a decent pumpkin so that we can carve it here. This may involve a trip to the Wednesday market in town...darn! :)

For Penny, one of the ladies there, this was her first time ever to carve a pumpkin. She said that in Ireland, where she's from, they used turnips...interesting. Never heard of that one, but alrighty :). Anywho, her pumpkin turned out awesome! Not bad for a beginner Penny! Her son Nathan was helping us take out the pumpkin guts and Luca, her other son was busy trying to climb on anything...he was in a devil costume :)

Nathan with his mom's pumpkin
So, the pumpkins were carved and the kids were watching "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown", so it was time to head over to the food table to try some other of the goodies that were brought. Christina brought some salmon spread that was super good (which reminds me I need to get the recipe!), Tammy and Matthias (our hosts) has a vegetable platter with this awesome dressing (of which I also need the recipe) and Penny brought something Irish, and I don't remember the name, but it never got opened and I wish I had tried it! Next time, next time :)



All in all, it was a great time. The kids were dressed up...we had a fireman (Nathan), a devil (Luca), a knight (Oliver), a bat (Clair), a sweet little girl (Aminah) and of course a frog (Amelia). We parents left our costumes at home...no wait...we were all dressed up as parents...cool parents of course!

Here we are with the pumpkins...unfortunately, Christina had to go home early, so she and her pumpkin aren't here...her's was pretty cool...it was a bat. She's got mad skillz at pumpkin carving :) Well...actually, they all had mad skillz...I was just the cleaner (being sure all the pumpkin guts were out)...

BATH TIME!!!!

Amelia loves bath time with daddy. This time, she was especially enjoying it, so I had to grab the camera and take a few pictures. She kicks her feet, moves her arms all around, and tries to drink the water, with some success. This is wonderful that she loves water...can't wait to take her to the Monte Kaolino next summer!!! What fun that will be!

Smiling Baby

Yesterday, Amelia began smiling at Markus and I when we were doing dumb stuff in front of her face :). She wasn't pushing or farting or anything, so I totally think that this is her really starting to consciously smile! YAY! I tried to get a picture of it while she was on Markus' lap smiling, but every time I got the camera, she decided she didn't want to smile anymore. I did catch the tail end of a smile though. When she does smile though, it is such a cute, gummy smile with dimples in her cheeks...totally heart meltingly cute!

Dear Amelia

Dear Amelia,

Yesterday, you turned one month old! I can't believe that it has already been a month! Time really flies...next week you're going to be bringing boys over and driving, I just know it!

You are seriously the most precious baby. Sometimes you scream bloody murder when you are so tired but just can't fall asleep. That's a bit hard on mommy and daddy, but once you are asleep and dreaming, it is just fine because we get to watch you sleep and dream. I wonder what you dream about. I say you are dreaming about booby since that is your favorite thing right now. Daddy thinks you are dreaming about taking a bath, since that is Daddy-Amelia time...it is probably both.

You seem to like your baths...that is, when you're not already in kind of a bad mood like last night. For the most part, you kick your legs and move your arms, and try to drink the water. It is all quite cute. You are a little water bug when you are in a good mood...when not, you in the tub, washed real quick and then taken out. You're cool with that.

You have also been to your first restaurants this past week. The first one you went to was a new Italian restaurant here in Weiden (which was really, really good). You were such a good girl while we were there! You were just looking around, taking in all the new sights and sounds and smells. You did get hungry, luckily, mommy was smart and had some mommy milk in a bottle for you, and you were happy with that. The only time you cried was right as we were leaving and we had to put your hat on...you still hate these hats, but your getting more and more used to them.

Amelia all packed up and ready to go to a restaurant...

Your second trip out was with some work friends of daddy's. Before you were born, we would go out about once a week with them. Now that we know you love going out to restaurants, we can start this up again. This time, you just slept the entire time (which mommy paid for later since you were up until 1am).

Today, though, was a really exciting day. It was your first doctor's appointment! Your doctor, Dr. Riedl, is really, really nice. You seemed to like her too, even though she tossed you in the air a bit to check your reflexes (and to try to scare the hiccups out of you). She told us that you were the picture of health and that you are average in weight and height. Since you came home from the hospital, you have gained almost a whole kilogram and grew 2 centimeters! Now, you are 4000 grams and 54 cm long! Such my growing little girl.

Another wonderful thing that you are doing now is smiling. Yes, you were smiling a bit before, but now it is coming more and more frequently. This just means that you are going to be smiling at silly things that mommy and daddy do real soon (and we both can't wait for that!).

You are still a real good sleeper at night. During the day, you really like to nurse roughly every 2 to 3 hours. At night, you nurse real good before we go to bed, and you're usually out at about 11pm. You then sleep until about 4, which is wonderful! Oh, and the best part, you are starting to nurse faster, so you and mommy can go back to bed sooner :). Mommy really appreciates this.

My good sleeper :)

I can't wait to see what you are going to do in the next month. I'm sure you are just going to surprise mommy and daddy with everything that will happen. Don't worry, mommy and daddy are ready for anything...and the camera is always near mommy for when you decide to do something absolutely adorable :).

I love you to bits and pieces!
Mommy

Sunday Funnies...on Monday, yet again :)

My mom sent this to me in an e-mail. I thought it was funny...

BIOLOGY CLASS

Students in an advanced Biology class were taking their
mid-term exam. The last question was, 'Name seven advantages of Mother's
Milk,' worth 70 points or none at all. One student, in particular, was
hard put to think of seven advantages. He wrote:

1.) It is perfect formula for the child.
2.) It provides immunity against several diseases.
3.) It is always the right temperature.
4.) It is inexpensive.
5.) It bonds the child to mother, and vice versa.
6.) It is always available as needed.

And then, the student was stuck. Finally, in desperation,
just before the bell indicating the end of the test rang, he
wrote...

7.) It comes in 2 cute containers.

He got an A.

My Birth Story...Part 2

So, yeah...4 cm at around 7:30 pm...damn. I was totally hoping to be at 6, get the epidural, and then have some time when I could try to get some sleep between the contractions, push twice and have my baby. Yeah. Nope. Not how it happened in the slightest.

So, after being told I was at 4 cm, they had me go back into the birthing room and labor some more. Ok, I can do that. Poor mom and Markus have to sit here and listen to me moan and groan. Mom was smart and brought a book with her. Markus, however, wasn't allowed to read :).

I did get an IV drug of some sorts...it was probably equivalent to baby aspirin though since it didn't really do much. The nurse said that I would feel a bit drunk...nope, not even a bit tipsy.

At some point, the midwives and doctors changed shifts...I have no idea when since I was bit out of it, not because of the baby aspirin, but because of the pain. The midwife that came next had zero bedside manner...and I mean zero.

At around 11pm, she came to tell us we should go to my room and labor some more since they need the labor room. Well, ok. I guess that is fine. We were able to get the one family room in the maternity ward. This was absolutely awesome! There were two beds in there, one for me (duh!) and one for Markus. There was also a big couch where mom could sleep that first night (and any subsequent night if she wanted, and she didn't, which I don't blame her!). So, as we're walking down the hall to the nurse's station to get something (I don't know what) I got another contraction, and I needed to stop...I mean, I really needed to stop and bend over and just wait the minute the contraction would last. Mean midwife lady told me not to stop, but to keep on moving. "Oh hell no lady! I'm stopping!". I didn't say that, but I really wanted to.

Well, we get the key to the family room and I get in bed. Germans are real big on supositories, so popped a couple more in and tried to relax...yeah, right. For every 3 minutes of "relaxing" there were 2 minutes of intense pain. And the pain only got worse, naturally. Around 1, I decided that I couldn't take any more of this (and I think Mom and Markus decided they couldn't take any more of my really loud moaning and groaning) so Markus headed down to tell them I would like my epidual now.

Of course they had to examine me to be sure it was the right time for one. Lo and behold, I'm 8 cm. The midwife said, "Well, lookie there, you're 8 cm. Can't do an epidural anymore.", and walked away. "Oh hell no!! I went to have the chat with the epidural dudes so I know what to expect and damnit, I want my epidural!" Nope, nope. I was too far along. No happy drugs for me...not of any kind. They wouldn't help/not be administered in time. Markus being the wonderful, loving, caring husband that he is, asked if we could have a second opinon from the actual doctor. The midwife said, "She'll just say the same thing, so no." Seriously, I never wanted to throttle someone as much as I did in that very moment. Hate doesn't even begin to describe the emotion that I felt towards this spawn of satan.

Me, laboring though...with no drugs...

Ok, well, shit. No epidural. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. This is what I had to keep repeating to myself, over and over and over. Then Amelia's head was passing by the tailbone. Ok, if I thought that those whimpy contractions earlier (like 5 minutes ago) were awful, they were nothing compared to this. I seriously thought that my back was breaking and I was going to have to have my entire lower body amputated at that point in time. Oh, and I don't think that I mentioned the lovely sounds that I was making during this time. Yes, those blood curdling screams you were hearing around 1:30am on September 18, yeah, that was me. In Weiden. Screaming at the top of my lungs. Wishing someone would amputate the lower half of my body to get the pain to stop.

Spawn of Satan has her back to us...the wonderful doctor is the other lady...

Did I mention how wonderful Markus was during this? He was by my side (where else?) and I was squeezing his palm in a way that I wouldn't crush his hand...so I thought. He was encouraging me the entire time. However, the only time I yelled at him was after the millionth time he said "It's ok". I told him if he said that one more time I would hit him. He switched to something like, "You're doing great" or "Push"...I don't really remember.

Then the pushing starts. There's no nurse here holding your legs up for you. You get to do that one yourself...the doctor and the midwife will push up against your feet which does help, but the spawn of satan wasn't pushing against my feet as well as the doc was, and I remember that being highly annoying.

Anyhoo, I was pushing and pushing and pushing...and no baby. This wasn't the 2 push and she's out like I was hoping. Nope...at one point, they told me not to push because little girl was a bit stressed, so I had to not push for 2 or so contractions. By then, the baby had to come, so the doctor, which by the way was sent straight from heaven, jumped on my stomach to help press little girl down and out. She did this for about 5 contractions, still nothing. So, she numbs my lady bits and gives me a giant epistomy. I'm talking Amazon here. During the next contraction she hops back on my stomach to help out...still not coming along like she'd like it. So, what does she do? She calls the head doctor to come and use the suction cup thing to get little girl out.

Once again, I'm thinking, "Oh hell no!", so I push with all my might with the next contraction and little girl's head pops out. Talk about a weird feeling. Then my water broke, which was another weird feeling. Then Amelia was there, laying on the table. I didn't hear her cry (which is what you hear in every movie) and I started to get scared that something was wrong...then I heard her cough and I forgot all about the pain of the past few hours. My little girl was there and healthy and life was good.

One happy family :)

So, 4 weeks have passed since the first contraction started. I've always heard that you forget the pain and all the trials of pregnancy as time goes on, and this is astonishingly true. Oh, I remember the pain, don't get me wrong. That is just about the worst pain on the planet. But, as I look back on it, it was only about 18 hours of my life....and I gave birth to a new life. How cool is that? This isn't to say that Markus and I are going to try for another one right away...but someday...

Amelia's first picture...she's so cute!

My Birth Story...Part 1

Some of you may not want to read this, because I will go into a bit of detail, so you can stop here, and that is fine...tomorrow or on Saturday will be a post about Amelia being 4 weeks old (or I might wait to do that on Sunday when she'll be a whole month old! My how time flies!).

So, here goes...my birth story.

It starts out as any other birth story does, contractions. Mine started at around 6:30 am on September 17. They really weren't bad, and I was able to sleep between them...plus, they were pretty far apart, around 10 minutes or so. The thing that was freaking me out was that Markus was in Frankfurt. He was at the IAA, the largest car show in the world (he was there for work...and well, a bit of pleasure! Think kid in a candy store with all those new cars to look at!). I gave him the green light to go, since I thought I wasn't going to actually go into labor on my actual due date, but I did.

I had a doctor's appointment at 9:30 that morning, so mom and I were tracking the contractions with this nifty web-site called the Contraction Master. Holy crap, they were about 5 minutes apart! That's about when I was getting a bit nervous and sent Markus a text saying, "I am having some weird cramping, so be prepared to hop in the car and come home." I didn't want to make him nervous, so I phrased it in such a way that A) he wouldn't freak out and B) he'd get the picture. Well, he did, and he jumped in the car to come home.

At the doctor's, the contractions were getting steadily worse...there were some women in the waiting room and I felt kind of bad for them...you know, with me breathing deeply and the slight look of pain on my face...plus, there was another pregnant lady there, so she was getting a little look into the future.

At the doctor's...hooked up to the monitor...obviously, between contractions :)

The doctor examined me and told me I was a good 1, maybe 2 cm. dilated. What? Are you kidding me? That's what I was 4 days ago! So, what could mom and I do...nothing but go home. So that is what we did. Mom rocked driving standard...she hasn't driven one of those in many many years...and she didn't stall it until we got home...I was quite impressed.

At home, we continued with the contraction monitor, and attempted to watch some TV to try to distract me from the pain. It worked for a while. I remember it was the Top Chef episode in which the French guy got kicked off...what the actual challenge was, I don't really remember.

Sometime during Top Chef, mom made me some pasta, which I devoured, and Markus came home (phew! sigh of relief!). This was around 12:30. I decided we could wait a bit so that Markus could eat something and plus, I wasn't really ready to go to the hospital quite yet. Then around 1:30, I decided, what the hell. We can go, and the worst thing they can do is say, "Hey, you're not far enough along. Go labor some more at home." Which is basically what they said.

Leaving for the hospital...take 1...
They hooked me up to baby monitors and contraction monitors. After about 45 minutes of that, they gave me a quick exam. I was still only 1-2 cm. dilated. "Shit." I thought, "This is going to take forever." So, with that (and a couple suppositories to help out with the pain), they sent us home. Ok, fine. I kind of expected that...but I had hoped that I was further along.

Hooked up to the monitors at the hospital...
We came home and I decided that I wanted to try to labor it out some in the bath. Which exactly what I did...for 3 hours. I felt kind of bad for the neighbors. They had to hear all my moans and groans. Either they thought Markus and I were having a sex marathon or that I was in labor...I'm hoping that they knew it was the latter!

After my 3 hour bath, and a couple refills of the hot water, I decided I wanted to get out since I was feeling a bit like a prune. Markus had to help me since I was in just a bit of pain...he was truly wonderful throughout this whole thing...I just can't say that enough! So, I moved on to bed and decided that it would be absolutely awesome if Markus were to basically put his entire weight on my lower back (while I was bending over) during the contractions. This helped to an extent...so, then I thought I would try out our exercise ball. Hey, they've got it in the hospital, so why not give it a go! I was only on that thing for about 3 contractions before I decided it was really time to go to the hospital. We waited until another contraction passed, hopped into the car and drove at a decent speed to the hospital. We live only 3 minutes away, so I didn't want to risk getting in a wreck on the way there...getting there 30 seconds earlier or later didn't matter (I say this now, but probably at the time I was wondering why we were driving so slow).

We get to the hospital, just in time for another contraction to kick in...man, these things suck. No seriously, they really suck. We go in after the contraction passed, and get to the elevator (which, by the way, is just about the slowest elevator on the planet) and it is full. Damn, we'll have to wait. Of course, by the time it comes again, another contraction is coming on, so there is no way in hell I'm moving right then. So we wait for the next one, which miraculously was there after the contraction was over.

We get up to the maternity ward and head into the Kreisssaal, literally screaming room, and they hook me up to the monitors again. Yup, still in labor. Baby is doing good. This time, after only 10 minutes or so, they take me in to be examined. Now they tell me that I'm 3 cm, but when a contraction is there, I'm 4. Great. This will never end...